A Brief Rant On Biblical Literalism
In my last post, Dave left a comment with the following question:
My methodist church has always been fairly liberal. Please explain the comment about female bishops? Does it really hurt your opion of methodism so much that methodists (who DO preach jesus is our savior, love your neighbor, and more) DON’T believe the bible is literall truth, and most of the man/woman rolls described therein are cultural and not neccessarily the way god wishes us to act??? I KNOW there are many “laws” described in that you consider as such… or did a few years ago anyway.
In short: “Hurting” my opinion of the Methodist Church? The Methodist church seems to vary widely from congregation to congregation with respect to theological and doctrinal soundness. I know Methodists who roll their eyes every time the all-too-liberal “leaders” in the church make some proclomation that is way outside of biblical boundaries. The same thing happens in most every other mainline denomination. Very notably in the Episcopalian church, less notably, though no less frequently, in the Lutheran church.
If the Bible is not literal truth then WHAT THE HECK are we doing with it? I would rather base a life on Tolkien’s writings than the Bible if the bible were not truth. In fact there are MANY other writings I would rather base my spirituallity on than the Bible, IF the Bible were not literal truth. I simply don’t have that option.
As for the cultural-ness of gender roles found in the Bible, the roles are consistent throughout the entire text, which covers roughly 6000-10,000 years of history (depending on how you shake it…) in several cultures and socio-political contexts.
I have a hard time seeing those roles as culturally driven.
The “Laws” you speak of are a different matter entirely than the gender roles. That’s a different post.
i wanna be an elf too!
In regard to cultural views of mens and women’s roles.. is it possible that instead of the bible being wrong, our culture is wrong? To much of the time people interpret the bible in light of our “enlightended” culture instead of the culture in light of the truly enlightening word of God.
We were talking about this the other day at Bible study and one thought was that our culture is into changing things with the times, ie the Constituion, the State Laws, in order to make them work in society today. Our culture then also wants to do this with the Bible. However, most see that they cannot do this as just changing the Bible like the Constitution but they do this by pulling out one verse, and use it to serve their means/agenda. By doing so they are “changing” it as they see fit. Just one random thought had…
“The price of greatness,” said Sir Winston Churchill, “is responsibility.” Being a people with a great purpose, God does command us to responsibility. I had a boss tell me that once (but about something else).
Keep on doing what you’re doing, Matt and Nancy. Your reward will be a blessing.
I happened to hear John Kerry speak on campus the other day. That poor fool started off his speech talking about how we have a covenent responsibility to the earth which all faiths are united in. He said that all the religions (Judaism, Christianity, Budhism, and Confussionism were the examples he spoke) of the world had a common theme and that we should check out all of the texts. You have to love the freedom we have in our country.
1) What is the number one requirement to be saved? What is the ONLY requirement to be saved? I believe it is to accept Jesus as savior…
Does it mean I’m not saved if I believe the world was created over thousands of years instead of 7 days? Does it keep me from loving god if I believe that we evolved from apes (according to god’s will or plan) instead of descending from Adam and Eve? Will the Holy Spirit reject me for thinking that Noah’s flood probably only covered the Middle East and not the whole world? Am I a worthless human being or Christian because I think that the earth is 5 billion years old and not a mere 15,000??
I’m not going to sit here and debate about who is right… that’s not the point I am trying to get at… I just don’t understand how worked up you get about the things that shouldn’t matter so much (if at all) next to the one overriding truth that you DO agree on…
This is what I was trying to get at… not the specific point of “bible is/isn’t literal truth.” Because I care far less about how you view gender rolls than the one comment that seems to show a… a lack of reverence for other denominations’ beliefs.
I’m also not trying to change the dynamic of your marriage (as one comment above seems to think I am?!?!?) I THINK Matt knew this from experience with me… but we do have an audicene.
To clarify: I’m not interested in your behaviors, beliefs or inturpretations… I am interested in the way you behave towards other christians with different beliefs.
2) If you want to have some fun and debate the specific topic gender rolls… let me ask a question before we continue… your bible knowledge is a bit higher than mine, but throughout the bulk of the “roughly 6000-10,000,” (if not the entirety of it) aren’t women property?? Don’t men practice polygamy??
Leaving alone the ethical points which depend on how you reply to the last question… let’s look at this from another angle…
For the “roughly 6000-10,000″ we also didn’t have antibiotics, x-rays, or pre-natal care… through the time of bible women had to spend roughly a third to half their adulthood pregnant to give birth to a dozen kids (if you were lucky enough to survive that long), 2-3 of whom would survive to adulthood… all this just to sustain the human race.
Sociologists studying various third world places find that women are out of the power structures more due to the “pregnancy downtime” than any other factor. So when you insert a bit of modern medicine (and I do mean a “bit”) that gender rolls change significantly, both because women need to be pregnant less, and because both mother and child are less “fragile” wile pregnant. I realize this isn’t quite a “cultural law” argument… but it is along similar lines…
3) You asked, “If the Bible is not literal truth then WHAT THE HECK are we doing with it?”
I believe that the bible was “inspired” by the will of god, but was interpreted, penned, assembled and (eventually) translated by men… fallible men… with free will… I do not believe, I can not believe that every word is %100 “as intended”… it doesn’t work in a world with free will (at least not in my brain) … I may as well believe that my church leaders are infallible… but I can believe and do believe that the basic message and the core of the bible IS true…
If the bible were perfect there would be a little study guide that came with it that would make sure you interred all the “interpretable” parts correctly.
If you don’t agree, you are welcome to your opinion and I respect that… but there isn’t much in this universe that is %100 perfect… doesn’t mean you throw out things that are more good than bad. This third point isn’t so much a debate point as an answer to your question.
-Dave
P.S. if you don’t enjoy debate anymore or if it is frustrating you at all we don’t’ have to continue this… I’m just doing because this is stimulating me much the way that 5th floor used to… it’s hard to find quality discourse of this sort on-line… I’m rather enjoying this right now :-D
P.P.S… I’ve been keeping up on the baby pics… sooooo cute! I should work on keeping up with my ISU crowd better than just browsing the blogs… but not here and now I suppose…
[...] Anyway, that was random. Back to Dave’s debate… [...]
I’ll chime in with just a coupla thoughts. I am by no means an expert.
Women often were treated as property and subhuman in the OT and even in the NT, but God’s commands are clear that they should not be. In fact, the Bible is unique in ancient literature in ascribing value to women. That’s one reason why the Gospel was so revolutionary in the 1st century and why it attracted people from all strata of society.
The other thought I had on biblical literalism, is that it’s very difficult to accept Jesus as the Son of God and not take the Bible as literal, since Jesus took the Bible as literal. If he’s not right about that, then how can he be the Son of God who was the perfect sacrifice for my sins?
Since Matt had to blog about the new Lost episode (sigh), this blog entry is already growing cold. But for whoever has nothing to do but to read Matt’s old blog entries, here’s a few thoughts to consider.
Whenever discussion over strongly held beliefs occurs, it takes significant self-control (maturity) to not get emotional. I have found, though, that those who get the most “worked up” during a discussion are the ones who are the most insecure in their position. Just food for thought, there.
1) You do not have to believe in a recent 7-day creation to be a born-again Christian, but you will eventually believe in a recent 7-day creation as you become more biblically literate. Genesis 1 can be honestly interpreted no other way unless you take your prior knowledge of evolution and infuse it into the text (a practice called Eisegesis which all scholars agree is a no no).
2) The Bible is an honest text… as one would expect if its author was God. Therefore, God shares both the good and the bad of humanity. The view that “the victor writes the history” doesn’t quite fit the Bible since it has stories such as King David, a man after God’s own heart, committing adultery and murder which is clearly forbidden in Scripture (Exodus 20). Therefore, the Bible speaks of many things that God’s people did that God forbids… two of which are polygamy (Note: the first man to practice polygamy was Lamech who also boasted that he killed a man and is 77 times more guilty of sin than Cain (Gen. 4:19-24)… so his behavior was definitely not affirmed by God) and treating women as property (Note: the Bible’s view of women was established in the first chapter of Genesis… “created in the image of God”… unless, of course, you don’t take Gen. 1 literally).
3) It does not make logical sense for God to inspire the Bible, but then not protect it’s transfer from age to age. The Old Testament had already been canonized when Jesus said, “For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, nor a dot, will pass from the Law until it all is accomplished.” (Matt. 5:18). Now, I will not say that there have not been any obvious scribal errors here and there in the Scriptures, because there are. But they are so minor that they in no way affect the accurate understanding and application of what the Scriptures are talking about.
Therefore, the biblically literate believer in Jesus Christ can literally believe the Bible without fear of committing intellectual suicide or naively believing mankind’s fabrication of God’s original intent.
Dan: “Jesus took the Bible as literal.”… I’m sorry… where does this come from??? Half the bible was written after his ascention?? How COULD he have taken it as literal before it was penned??
Tim: I really liked what you wrote… I am goign to have to think about it for a while… you killed my whole debate thing tho as there isn’t much there I feel like counterpointing… I would like to thank you for saying “out loud” that literall belief in the bible isn’t a necesity to be “born again christian”… even if you think it will always come in time.
Dave,
Remember Jesus talking about Jonah and the whale, Moses and the snake, the Pentateuch being written by Moses etc. and how the OT spoke of him and was fulfilled in him?
Dave - Great questions, keep asking them.
Dan, Tim, Steve - Thanks for chiming in, esp. Dan and Tim, with great answers, things I left out in my broad-strokes of a post.
Hey Dave B,
After I studied Genesis, I believe that it’s a literary narrative not a historical document. It’s a story; a story that gave the people of Israel a sense of self identity, rooted them in the past and shaped their future. I don’t believe it’s meant to be a scientific document, rather a spiritual one.
Well Melissa - that certainly is an interesting belief. I am curious as to what brought you to that belief?
Of course “scientific document” would be a hard label to give to MANY factual documents. There is a difference between a historical document and a scientific document.
The science that is in genesis is accurate, but I wouldn’t call Genesis a “scientific” document. In fact, the only science that can even come close to touching genesis is paleontology and archaeology. The rest is simply not obervable or reproducable.
The fact remains that the work has not been touted in millenia past as simply “literary”, so on what basis do you claim that it is such?
I don’t mean to jump down your throat here in the first correspondance we’ve had in a long time :)
Well the short answer to how I got to that belief would be CH 161: Orientation to the Older Testament: Pentateuch and Former Prophets with Carolyn Pressler.
I do however believe that the bible is literary in that it is made up of all different kinds if literature: it has poetry, narration, love songs, and genealogy, to name a few.
I believe that the Pentateuch is made up of stories of a people passed down for orally for generations before ever written. They were embedded in who they were as a people. The stories gave them identity and a sense of comfort while in exile.
Melissa???? Is that melissa of deca-fem fame???? Or some othe melissa I am not familiar with.
Either way that is a good way of putting what I have held to be true for a long time… I’m not sure i could have found the good words you used in a million years. Thank you. I may use those in my future discussions.
This is Melissa B of GSB, Buchanan Hall, and Finance Committee fame. I’m the also the reason that Weaver that moved up to the Twin Cities, well actually he moved here first, but mostly because he knew that I was going to start my seminary program this fall.
Ahh… that melissa…
Featured on BuzzTracker…
…